70 



SCIENCE. 



[N. S. Vol. XI. No. 263. 



prised to see the uephoscope, nor is maker or 

 price indicated in the list of instruments. It 

 is a pity to put a doubly-folded sheet like that 

 in Chapter III. in a school-book. It will cer- 

 tainly be torn in the first year. By printing on 

 both sides one fold might have been avoided 

 and there is no good reason why all the data 

 might not have been printed in the text as 

 wanted day by day. 



The fact that so many problems are worked 

 out in the book makes it easier reading but will 

 require the books to be closely watched in the 

 class-room. 



The Weather Bureau Meteorological Tables 

 are inserted at the end of the book with an ex- 

 cellent appendix on the ' Equipment of a 

 Meteorological Laboratory.' 



The book should prove valuable to every 

 teacher of meteorology. 



M. S. W. Jefferson. 



Elmwood, Mass., December 19, 1899. 



Bacteria, especially as they are related to the 

 Economy of Nature, to Industrial Processes 

 and to the Public Health. By George New- 

 man, M.D., Demonstrator of Bacteriology, 

 King's College, London. The Science Series. 

 New York, G. P. Putnam's Sons ; London, 

 John Murray. 1899. Pp. 348. 

 The fact that bacteria are concerned in a 

 variety of natural processes and do not devote 

 themselves exclusively to the causation of dis- 

 ease is beginning to touch the popular imagina- 

 tion and to create a demand for treatises that 

 shall deal with the subject of bacteriology from 

 a general biological standpoint rather than a 

 strictly medical one. An attempt to meet this 

 need has been made in the present instance. 

 Dr. Newman discusses, under separate chapter- 

 heads : The Biology of Bacteria, Bacteria in 

 Water, Bacteria in the Air, Bacteria and Fer- 

 mentation, Bacteria in the Soil, and Bacteria in 

 Milk, Milk Products and other Foods. These 

 six chapters cover 239 pages out of 348. A 

 chapter is then given to The Question of Im- 

 munity and Antitoxins, which is followed, by 

 what seems a singular inversion, with one on 

 Bacteria and Disease, and the book ends with 

 a chapter on Disinfection. Many topics of great 

 interest are considered in these pages, and the 



author's selection of material and mode of treat- 

 ment will command general approval. The 

 book is marred, however, by a lax and involved 

 style and contains so many errors of statement 

 as to call seriously for revision. On page 30, 

 for example, it is stated that ' ' boiling for thirty 

 to sixty minutes will kill all bacilli and all 

 spores," and on page 79, " moist heat at the 

 boiling point maintained for five minutes will 

 kill all bacteriaand their spores. " These state- 

 ments are not in accord and neither is correct. 

 On page 16 it is erroneously stated that " Mi- 

 crococcus agilis is the only coccus which has 

 flagella and active motion." In the description 

 of Van Ermengem's method of staining flagella 

 (p. 63) it is probably through a typographical 

 slip that a 25.5 per cent, solution of silver ni- 

 trate is recommended, and surely the use of 

 boric acid in place of osmic acid in the fixing 

 bath is an unusual procedure. It is hardly a 

 careful form of statement to refer to the power 

 of the tetanus bacillus to produce disease as its 

 ' regular function ' (p. 32). The author's defini- 

 tion of the antitoxin unit (p. 263) is incorrect. 

 It is not necessary to multiply instances, but it 

 is to be hoped that subsequent editions may 

 find some of these blemishes removed, since 

 they unquestionably impair the value of an 

 otherwise interesting and useful book. 



Two examples of the author's somewhat 

 enigmatic style may be given : ' ' Yet, whilst 

 this general fact is true, we must emphasize at 

 the outset the possibility and practicability of 

 securing absolutely pure sterile milk. Recently 

 some milking was carried out under strict anti- 

 septic precautions, with the above sterile re- 

 sult" (p. 181). " Budding occurs in some kinds 

 of yeast, and would be classified by some au- 

 thorities under spore formation, but in practice 

 it is so obviously a ' budding ' that it may be so 

 classified" (p. 16). Tf O T 



A Treatise on Crystallography. By W. J. Lewis, 

 M.A., Professor of Mineralogy in the Uni- 

 versity of Cambridge. Cambridge Natural 

 Science Manuals, Geological Series. Cam- 

 bridge : At the University Press. 1899. 4to. 

 Pp. xii + 612. 



This new text-book of crystallography pre- 

 sents the modern views as to the classification of 



